Love & Darts (9781937316075)

by Jones, Nath

  Roni deleted the text message from her mother and got her son and his carrier out of the car. She left her dad rolling around in the backseat and walked to the house next door. She wished she had grabbed the diaper bag or at least a blanket. She wanted to be more prepared. But it was too late. She rang the doorbell.

  Her neighbor answered. Roni extended her son’s carrier and said, “Can I borrow your car for a half-hour? I’ll fill up your tank.” Her neighbor didn’t say a word. She reached for the baby carrier, dug into her pocket, and handed Roni the keys.

  SMALL TOWN

  Suicide’s unthinkable but around six thirty on a winter night in 1994 the redheaded woman stood against a low building covered with dingy white siding. She had on the suit she’d worn to a job interview she’d never gotten a call back about and smoked her cigarette behind a holly bush because she didn’t want to be hit by the door that swung open periodically. Her discount heels sank down into the slushy bark mulch. Her head tilted back against a black oval sign that read Devalle Funeral Home in tasteful gold script. The sign was lit by a solar-powered fluorescent landscaping light full of dead bugs from the summer.

  The winter sun must not have fully charged the power cell during the day so its flickering bluish light illuminated her hair. She was tired but not too tired to notice the sign behind her head, to remember the building’s purpose, and to realize people were staring at her. She took two steps forward. Her shadow grew tall and black against the siding. She was conscious of the eyes upon her but not of the enormous shadow shifting and flickering behind her. The mourners turned away, afraid of the towering, swaying silhouette. The redhead couldn’t understand why they refused to acknowledge her. She knew every one of them. So she summoned a defensive pride and smiled at each of the people she thought judged her for smoking, or for standing in the bushes, or for sinking into the mulch, or for leaning her head against the fancy sign, or for not going inside right away to pay her respects, or whatever their reasons were. She had no reason to be guilty. She was waiting for her friend. So with spiteful clenched lips she nodded to those who refused to look at her as if to say, “And what makes my life your business?”

  It's hard to feel absolutely comfortable in a small town.

  There’s not a large degree of discomfort. After living there for a lifetime a person might not notice any uneasy feeling at all but there is a small amount of tension, like the constant hum in an electric wire or the inescapable buzzing of a ceiling fan that needs repair. It's a uniform, predictable, smooth tension. It must come from the nature of the people. Different figures carved from the same stone, all trying to discern themselves from each other, like kitchen magnets that won't stick together.

  And the red-haired woman felt that tension acutely while she waited for her friend. Her hands were bony and freezing in the wind, and even though her heels sank into the muck that February had made of the summer landscaping she didn’t want to wait on the sidewalk amidst the influx of mourners. People wearing dark coats passed her. Each one went ahead, stamped his or her feet on the Astroturf step, and held the glass door for the next person.

  She was unconscious of the shadow, but it kept happening that as the mourners approached the funeral home they saw the enigmatic figure as a presence to be reckoned with. They passed her without looking. They gripped their children's shoulders. Unconsciously the men placed themselves between her and their loved ones: protective, afraid. The shadow stretched up the building and wrapped itself around the gutter. It was a reminder of the size of death and the reason they had come. They bowed their heads in reverence for the unknown. Her shadow swayed back and forth in the cold, smoking and waiting for a friend. To the passersby the motion signified an impatience with life and a cool expectation of their similar fate. Consciousness is exhausted by February. They did not think all of these things, but the woman's tracing brought tears to their eyes as they passed. The redheaded woman stood aloof, smoking her cigarette, and waiting for someone of these supposed friends to at least say hello. Her “Hello, Irene,” crashed useless against the sidewalk.

  An old red Chevy truck approached. Graceful curves of slush sprayed out from the wheels, and halfhearted flurries dove past the headlights. The truck came to a treacherous stop and leaned against the curb, exhausted. The passenger asked the driver, probably again, to escort her in. He reached across her and pushed the door open. It scraped the curb, sticking in the grassy mud. A fat woman backed out of the truck and stood on the curb. With her weight removed, the door rose from the mud. She still spoke to the driver. He nodded. The fat woman shut the door and checked her makeup in the side mirror before the old truck pulled away. She smacked the fender in disgust. She hadn’t finished primping before her husband drove off. But. He didn’t stop. She made her way carefully along the curb to the sidewalk.

  The red-haired woman moved away from her post between the landscaping light and the sign it lit. The shadow shrank down the wall and disappeared. People on the sidewalk smiled and nodded as she passed them with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She watched the fat lady's balancing act with interest. She was nominally excited for the fat woman when she successfully made it to the sidewalk without falling into the slush-filled gutter or toppling over into the soggy grass. The fat woman's brand-new high heels made the event preposterous. Dropping her cigarette, the red-haired woman, who was much skinnier than her friend, clapped sarcastically, despite the others. The fat lady giggled but silenced herself quickly. Laughter was not appropriate with a dead young man inside.

  The redhead greeted the fat woman's smile with an eager wave, justifying her wait to whoever was around. The two women fell in line with the other mourners on the sidewalk, stepped onto the Astroturf together, smiled at the man who held the door for them as he went past and out into the night with hollow, dutiful, thank-God-that’s-over eyes.

  They had to go through with it now.

  The fat woman struggled out of her coat. She stuffed her hat down one of the bulky sleeves and her scarf down the other. She laid the coat over her left arm, began diligently picking lint off her blouse, and signed the guest book.

  While her friend pondered over what to write as a condolence, the redheaded woman smoothed her hair and pulled at her skirt, fighting its static cling. She looked around. Flowers were balanced precariously on mismatched antique end tables. Men in dark blue or gray suits were huddled together around the edges of the room missing their cocktails. Children—looking sad since they knew Tuesday is never supposed to wear Sunday's clothes—sat waiting, draping themselves without hope of comfort on satin-striped divans in the foyer or on wooden folding chairs that defined the expectation to stay for a while in the spacious front room. Though the husbands and children were removed and recalcitrant the mothers resolved to stand in line to be received and pay their last respects.

  As each woman approached the casket, she snapped her fingers in the direction of the perimeter of men, stared at the number of bored, quietly-swarming children, and hissed specific names, summoning the rest of her entourage. One after another each matron made it to the front of the line, the husband came over, sheepish with guilt. The children’s porcelain faces betrayed no pain of awareness or understanding even as their mother’s fingernails dug into their sweet, awkwardly well-dressed shoulders. Each woman guarded her own. She instilled undeserved strength into her little clan. Keeping herself between them and the casket, they faced death together. This mother was strong. She looked the grieving mother in the eyes as if to say, “I'll shit if this ever happens to me. And if any one of these ungrateful family fools of mine do to me what’s been done to you, I swear to God, I’ll kill them all.” But that went without saying as the graceful, Christian sympathies rolled out of well-intentioned mouths.

  The red-haired woman and the fat woman didn’t have anyone to summon other than each other. So they just stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their hands clasped in front of them, watching women they knew at the front of the line. The aisle c
arpet had been worn through by years of mourners’ shuffling shoes. In the carpet underneath the wooden folding chairs, pink ribbon reins that spanned a navy background held gaudy textile bouquets together and tight. The red-haired woman tried to decide whether it was possible to have that kind of carpet in a home. She couldn't. She just knew she’d never have it at her house. The fat woman slightly behind her leaned forward and whispered, “I still can’t believe he did it.”

  The red-haired woman pulled the shoulder strap of her purse closer to her neck. In the same motion, a furtive finger grabbed her sneaking bra strap and cinched it back into position. Knowing you are not supposed to allude to bra straps with such gestures, she leaned into the ear of the fat woman. “It’s unreal. You wouldn't expect it out of such a sweet kid.”

  “I don't understand. My kids always thought he was so great.”

  “He was. Because look at his mother. Marion is just wonderful, isn’t she? Look at her with that girlfriend of his. She hasn’t let her hand go for fifteen minutes.”

  “Well, you know, that was his ex-girlfriend. They had broke up about six months back.”

  “Really? I guess I didn’t know. Whenever my kids graduated I stopped getting most of the high school gossip.” She tossed her head back to force a bothersome strand of hair to fall out of her eyes. She wrinkled her nose to squint toward the girl. She needed glasses but looked at Marion and the ex-girlfriend. “Well, then that's maybe another reason he pulled this stunt.”

  “I don't know that you could call something so drastic a stunt. He just needed some kind of help, I suppose. Don’t you think? I don't know, really. My boys always said he was an odd sort. They never bothered him much, you know. Nothing wrong with him or nothing—just a weird kid.”

  “He wasn’t weird. How was he weird? He was a sweet boy. And a point guard.”

  The skinny woman was looking at an elderly couple across the room. She produced a bright smile for them, and then saw them turn to discuss her identity under a green straw hat and with the support of an old cane. She knew what they were saying: pregnant in high school, abused, divorced. She’d heard it all before. Felt like carrying her college diploma around with her half the time. Wanted to see that woman even try to work two jobs, get her kids from daycare, and still cook dinner while she finished her degree. But. It didn’t matter. She knew what they were saying: Now which one is that? Is that Irene’s daughter or the one who ended up taking everybody’s head off at the ecumenical bake sale two years ago? Whispers, nods, and shaking heads got tossed back and forth between the old couple. One of his arthritic fingers jumped at the moment of enlightenment, and the green hat rose and fell in agreement. With a curt nod to the old couple, the redhead turned back to the fat woman.

  “He was on Jim’s Little League team back ten years or so ago. All the pictures he's in the middle of the back row tall as can be and showing off that big grin he had. His mother loved that sweet smile.”

  “Did he smoke? I thought I saw him smoking over by the grocery a few times. Maybe that was something.”

  “I don't think so. Do you, really? No. Well, they all smoke.” She smoked two packs a day. “Even my boys once in a while. But I'll tell you, when my brother-in-law came off with that cancer, I didn't smell it on my sister or him much anymore.”

  “Don't you just love it when they think you don't know?” The fat woman leaned in with satisfaction, patting the redhead’s freckled forearm. She withdrew her hand modestly, and tried to pull her blazer close around her large midriff. She went on. “I used to go up to my oldest son when he was first in high school and give him a big hug or ask to make him a big dinner when I just knew they'd been drinking beer up at Cawlyer's farm. That poor boy would roll his head back, hold his breath, whatever, just trying not to say anything right into my nose. And he would just reek of alcohol. Frank and I would go to bed and just laugh.” She chuckled mostly over the mention of her bed in a funeral parlor.

  The red-haired woman thought about the fat woman in bed with the skinny pickup truck driver who had dropped her off. They were an odd couple. Always had been. The red-haired woman tried not to cringe. She sucked in her cheeks and raised her eyebrows. Her response was calculated, an admonishment not at all her own, but one that showed her effort to remain neutral. “Those boys can be so cruel to each other with that beer.”

  The fat woman regained her composure with a cleansing sniff, giving her full attention to the small talk. She sensed condescension and did not appreciate it. “Oh. Well, my boys never did any of that. But they like to have a good time, just like anyone.”

  “I've never been much of a drinker. My father was an alcoholic. You knew that.”

  “No. Now I didn't know that.”

  The women took several steps forward. The people behind them moved in closer. The fat woman was uncomfortable and someone stepped on the back of the redhead's shoe. Both women turned half-defensively, then recognizing a local pastor and his wife they nodded, graciously forgiving the infringement, probably hoping he would return the favor.

  He didn’t.

  The redhead went back to her story. “He was. It was awful. I don't remember too much about it, but he used to beat up my brothers pretty bad. My oldest sister says that he used to hit my mother, but I don't believe he would do any of that.”

  “Frank hit me once.”

  The redheaded woman had never heard that. She rolled her wedding ring around her finger with her right hand. She looked down at it. Remembering where her husband had bought it, she suddenly let it go. “Well.” She didn’t say it: Everybody gets hit once.

  At least.

  The fat woman tried again. “Were you the youngest then?”

  “Well, close. There was me and then one more. He had the Down's Syndrome though, you know, and he only lived to be about ten for some reason. Nowadays that doesn't stop them at all. They grow up as good as anybody.” One of her arms flailed out to the side and fell back down against her side in an exaggerated shrug.

  The fat woman was embarrassed by this theatrical gesture. Trying to remember his name, knowing she should know the red-haired brother’s name, she wondered what the pastor would think of the dramatic, flailing arm of her friend. She looked around quickly, willing to grant necessary apologies to onlookers who might have been offended. No one cared.

  The red-haired woman was confused by the fat woman's overt glances. A funeral parlor is not the place to pass judgment on people's fashion sense. “But Dad never laid a hand on him, now.”

  “Oh. Of course not. It’s unimaginable.” They both ignored the shaky insecurity in her assertion that such things were.

  The two women took an impatient step forward as the line inched along. They craned their necks to see who was paying last respects and to find out what could possibly be taking so long. A mother had picked up her little girl to let her look at the coffin. The little girl reached for the edge of the lid and pulled on it. The mother slapped her hand and put the little girl down. The little girl ran back down the aisle pushing through all the legs of people waiting in the receiving line. Her brother appeared from nowhere and followed her through the crowd. His hair was neatly combed and wet. He said, “Excuse me,” to the red-haired woman. He moved quickly, careful not to run, and fidgeted with his tie. As the red-haired woman smiled down at him, the fat woman echoed with her own appropriate smile.

  The red-haired woman revived their other conversation. “Why? Did your boys?” There was interest in her voice.

  “Well, I would like to think not. But sometimes I suspected it. There was this one time with my middle boy, and he was just being secretive as you wouldn't believe. It made us both, me and Frank, just so uncomfortable. Sometimes he would have the bleary eyes, you know. Broke my heart.”

  “I saw that on the news program once. About the eyes. With marijuana.” The red-haired woman didn’t say anything about buying a dime bag two weeks ago.

  “Well, there was some strange cars come out to our place a f
ew times, too. I told Frank we should ask him about it, but he thought we shouldn't get involved.”

  “But if he was in trouble why wouldn’t you?”

  The little girl ran back into the room slapping her patent leather shoes deliberately on the carpet. She ran past the flowers along the left wall until she came to a group of men in black and blue suits. She found her father and jumped up into his arms. Her brother stopped short, abandoning pursuit. The little girl rubbed her eyes to stop crying and wriggled up to the top of her father's shoulder. Defiantly, she stuck out her little pink tongue at her brother as the father patted her ruffled rear end. The brother receded.

  “Well, Frank seemed to think it was just a phase and that he should work it out himself. And he did.”

  The little girl wriggled out of her father's arms. He set her down without notice and continued his conversation. The little girl ran off to find her brother on the other side of the room. When she did, she pushed him hard from behind.

  “He’s down in college now. He’s studying some kind of business. Seems to like it enough and doing real good, too. He got a D in economics, but he never was as good as his brother in math, so that figures. Otherwise his grades are real good. He’s not stupid, you know. Not at all. Look at Marion. She looks frozen almost, doesn’t she?”